Ideas, inspirations and trends for urban living.

What has occupy left for our cities?

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As
of this week, two years have passed since Occupy Wall Street protestors set up
camp in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, an occupation that spread, in spirit,
across the globe. Zuccotti Park was eventually cleared in mid-November 2011,
and so was City Square in Melbourne and La Plaza de Armas in Santiago de Chile
and all the other places that
made home to frustrated and passionate voices.

While I won’t be able to
account for everything that has developed after the Occupy movement, there is
something that seems relevant to our cities: The birth of Privately Owned
Public Spaces (POPS).

Looking back at the last two years, we’ve seen a noticeable increase
in attention paid to and activities developed in these spaces like Hong Kong’s iconicHSBCPlaza,
Taipei’s 101 Tower and even Federation Square in Melbourne. Although Federation
Square and City Square in Melbourne had been somewhat used for public events,
it’s hard to come by a week that there are no events on either site these days. Importantly,
we had not been aware that such hybrid spaces at the nexus of the public and
private domains also existed in many other countries and continents, and could
provide a place for the community.

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According to areport on POPS in Tokyo, POPSare
a New York City export. As codified under the landmark New York Zoning Resolution of
1961, more than 525POPS exist
in New York City, the first being in the form of parks like Zuccotti. Today
however, POPS also come in the form of gallerias, concourses and more. From its
inception, the idea spread, especially to places where governments felt they
lacked the leverage to protect open land as developers bought up space.POPSmostly
went ignored, but today as cities increasingly develop more public, private
partnerships, they are appearing in all forms and colours.

What does it take to have a successful POPS? According to the
Department of City Planning in New York, “only with increasing public
awareness, further refinement of design standards, and diligent regulatory
review and enforcement” citizens can “be assured of high-quality privately
owned public spaces." With the increase citizen engagement and
participation happening in most cities, this should be possible to achieve.

There are two additional questions however, that are at play
when it comes to consideringPOPS. The first is whether the seemingly oxymoronic
concept of a "privately owned public space" is tenable and healthy.
(As one urbanist and writerrecently tweeted,
"Are there Publicly Owned Private Spaces?")

I guess this was highlighted throughout the Occupy movement
process, but we seem to maintain the view that these spaces are just for eating
lunch. How can we move on from this? Recognising these places and working with
citizens to design activities through easy-to-use communication methods could
be one way.

The second question concerns whether individualPOPS deals
are good for the public. Are there barriers that make the space difficult to
use? Developers in Melbourne are notorious for placing barriers and other
obstacles that make POPS seem a site for future development or an extension of
a private space. We also find that the minute you step into Federation Square
with something more than a piece of paper you are called upon to explain.

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We’re in the middle of a creeping privatisation of public space,
where it’s hard to track the scale of this change and identify these spaces. To
help do this, organisations, cities or individuals could do something like TheGuardian’s
platform that hopes to document thePOPSthat have opening around the
United Kingdom. While it may not answer any of the above questions,
it does provide a start of recognising these spaces and integrating them to the
public arena.

It’ll be a long
conversation, which will take us all and it will take us forever, but then, that’s
the point.